


Aftermath

by miss_aligned



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mass Effect 3, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-07-14 10:11:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7166987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_aligned/pseuds/miss_aligned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Normandy suffers an immense loss when the Crucible finally fires, but few  know that pain like the Major.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

“Will she come back?” Kaidan could barely form the words as he turned his back on the love of his life and boarded the Normandy. The pain of realizing that he’d failed as a soldier, a Spectre, a friend, felt far more real than the badly damaged nerves in his leg at the moment. “Will she be okay?”

Garrus said nothing for a long while. Though it was difficult to read him, it was clear that he was distraught about Shepard running off to save the galaxy on her own with no one she could trust to watch her back. “There are a lot of people depending on her. Seems to me that when that happens, she gets the job done.”

“That isn’t what I asked,” Kaidan responded, a lump forming in his throat. Somewhere deep down he hoped that the turian had a more uplifting and positive outlook on the chaos happening around them. Perhaps he wanted to be chastised for thinking pessimistically because the situation looked so damned impossible.

Garrus sighed heavily. His mandibles twitched with anxiety. “I know.”

By the time they reached the med bay, Kaidan was having a very difficult time moving. He internally cursed the situation, knowing that Shepard had made the right call in demanding an evacuation for him. He couldn’t go on. She had to leave him behind.

The coms were on throughout the ship so that everyone, everywhere onboard could listen to the chatter, updates, orders, and destruction swirling just above Earth’s surface. Another alliance ship had gone down. An Asari dreadnaught was struggling to stay in one piece, while countless frigates were blasted apart and raining fire upon the planet below. Everyone wanted to turn off the noise of their impending doom, but no one would dare for fear that they might miss their victory.

Garrus had been pacing, but as the reports escalated and people of all races were being wiped out, he left the med bay, most likely to deal with the tragedy alone. Kaidan couldn’t blame him for needing privacy in what could be their final hours.

It felt like an eternity, waiting for the update from the ground troops trying to make it to the Citadel. They’d started with thousands but had been left with only a few. As the seconds and minutes passed by, the chances of survival grew slimmer. Kaidan’s hands were balled into fists at his sides while he stiffly sat, waiting on the bed. His knuckles grew white with the pressure as he tried to spur the medi-gel to work just enough for him to stand. If he could stand and walk even a little, he was going back out to finish the job. If he had to crawl to find Shepard, then that’s what he would do.

His mouth went dry and his heart fell down to his toes when he’d heard the report that the soldiers on the ground had been annihilated. Kaidan’s hands covered his face as he realized, with great shame, that he’d failed Shepard when she’d needed him most. The thought of her lying on the ground, being trampled by husks as the light left her eyes and banshees screamed in victory tore him apart.

The shock of losing Shepard again hit him like a ton of bricks. Hadn’t he told her he couldn’t handle doing it a second time? Hadn’t he begged her to stay with him? Certainly she was going to do her job, but he was going to be by her side to ensure that it would be done. He was supposed to protect her, to help her, to take the killing blow in her place if needed. He wasn’t going to be left behind. Again.

An excited change of tone caught his attention and pulled Kaidan from his internal misery. Somehow… someway… she’d made it through. Shepard was on the Citadel. The tiniest of smiles tugged at the corners of his mouth as he took a deep breath and chastised himself for doubting her. _Of course_ she’d made it through. Shepard never failed to do what needed to be done, even in the worst of times.

Perhaps that’s what scared him about this entire situation the most.

Please don’t leave me behind.

His amber gaze turned with renewed determination on the pile of armor that had been shed at his bedside. The medi-gel was working well enough to deaden the nerves, if nothing else. If the arms of the Citadel were open, then there was opportunity to reach her. To help her. Whatever it was that was inhibiting the Crucible’s fire had to be fixed, after all, and if they couldn’t find a way to do it, then he was bringing Shepard back kicking and screaming. Slowly, carefully, Kaidan pulled armor over and locked it onto his legs, trying to be mindful that his bandages would remain in place and he wouldn’t cause any further damage. When he picked up his chest plate, however, something fluttered out of it and down onto the floor.

Kaidan glanced at the object curiously as numerous new reports flooded in over the coms regarding changes of attack and which ships were going down as a result of the war with the reapers. The sight that met his eyes was a glossy piece of paper, folded into a small square. The portion he could see revealed a faint boot print. After carefully stooping to pick it up, he unfolded it to take a closer look.

It had been charred along most of the edges, but he could still see the colorful image of a sunset. It appeared to be the page of a children’s book, if he guessed right. Closer inspection revealed how it might have found its way to being tucked inside his armor. The quick, deliberate pen strokes of a woman with the weight of the galaxy on her shoulders but who still wanted take the time to pass along a message struck him dumfounded. There was only one type-written line on the page that was still legible, as the rest of the book had most certainly been destroyed in the war.

_“And they lived happily ever after.”_

Shepard had drawn a little smiley face next to the words.

She’d included a message of her own, clearly meant for Kaidan, and somehow slipped the page inside his armor for him to find later.

_Stay safe._  
_Stay strong._  
_You’re my hero._  
_I love you._  
_Always._  
_-S_

Tears stung behind his eyes as he read and reread the note. His legs began to buckle, so he shifted his weight back onto the bed as he stared at it. He folded it back up and tucked it into a pocket. He couldn’t let her die out there on her own. His newfound resolve helped to mute the pain in his limbs and continue to get his armor back on to fight alongside the rest of the galaxy against the reapers. He was going to find Shepard and bring her back from this himself.

He was never letting her out of his sight when all of this was said and done.

They were both going to retire from the military after this war. No questions or arguments.

He was going to marry her.

If they ever had a daughter, he was going to suggest the name Hope. It seemed only fitting, seeing as she’d already given him that time and time again.

They’d settle in some remote area where she could live out her long days in well-deserved peace. No one would ask her to do anything again, if he had a say about it.

A strange feeling washed over him in that moment, when he worked to assemble the rest of his armor and demand that Joker bring the ship in close enough for him to disembark and follow after the commander, consequences be damned. Despair wrapped its icy grip around his chest and he knew, somehow, that something had changed. He didn’t have to hear the alarmed cries of the crew elsewhere on the deck. He hadn’t needed to see the strange light reflecting off of the Normandy’s metal walls and furnishings. He felt it in his heart when it broke.

A blast of new calls erupted over the coms. There were conflicting reports of victory and calls for retreat. Kaidan didn’t know what sense to make of them, but he was barely listening as it was. Something had changed the entire battlefield and he wasn’t ready to admit to himself what it was.

It wasn’t until he felt the powerful lurch of the ship that he was fully shaken to his core. If the Normandy was undergoing a full retreat, Kaidan knew that it would only because there was no possibility of collecting its commander. He’d heard Joker say it several times. He would have followed her into hell. It was a sentiment that most of the crew shared, and there was no way he would have pulled the ship away from such a mess unless she was gone.

As the Normandy raced across the endless expanse of space, away from Earth and away from the Citadel, Kaidan pressed a fist to his lips as though it was all that was holding in the scream threatening to tear out of his throat. Tears began spilling down his cheeks. He tried to still his body from the silent sobs when he heard someone step through the door, but to no avail.

It was Liara that wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed her head against his. She was already crying and seemed to be in need of as much comfort as he was. He slipped the note out of his pocket and held it in his hands as she wept alongside him. He had no words to offer her, nor she for him.

Tali appeared next, and though it was impossible to see her expression, slumped shoulders and a faint sniffling sound suggested that she was suffering, too. Garrus was right behind her, his face a hardened mask, but rubbing his head as though he couldn’t believe what was happening. Quietly, they huddled together in the med bay, unable or unwilling to articulate how long and taxing the journey had been. How much it had taken out of them. How they were going to move on in a world without reapers or Shepard.

Had it been worth it? The victory they’d been planning certainly suggested that it was, but Kaidan couldn’t say for sure. The galaxy had won, but he, personally, had lost the one thing that mattered.

Hadn’t he said that he couldn’t handle this a second time? Hadn’t he begged her to stay with him? How could they have claimed to be willing to follow her straight into hell…

…and then let her go there all alone?

Alone. Again.


End file.
